Would You Contract For A Company Where You Wouldn't Work Full-Time?

Not everyone wants to work for a large company. The traditional approach of a big corporation (fixed hours, central location, clock watching) can seem entirely pointless in terms of productivity. But would you happily work as a contractor for a business where you wouldn't want to work for full-time?

I'm reflecting on this after hearing some comments from Steve Brown, Intel's chief evangelist, made at a media breakfast on the future of work which I attended this morning. Discussing the increasing need for flexibility when hiring employees, Brown noted that Intel (and other tech behemoths) had found hiring contract workers a more effective way of attracting

If I look at a company like Intel, we need a lot of great software talent — increasingly we're a blended compute company — but a lot of software developers don't want to work for a corporation. They don't want to work for an Intel or a Microsoft or any large company, but they may be willing to work on a contract. So contracting may be a tool that brings in talent you may not be able to get otherwise.

That makes sense, but I'm curious about how widespread that attitude is. Would you apply different standards to a contracting job than a full-time gig? Tell us, and tell us why, in the comments.

Comments

jacksonbison Guest

Nov 8, 2012, 12:01pm

Yup, and do.

Contract gigs offer better pay to put up with these companies you wouldn't want to work for full time, and in 6 - 12 months I'll be onto something else more interesting.

As a designer I contract for several businesses that either don't need, can't afford or don't want to pay for a full time employee. Most of the time I wouldn't consider working full time for those businesses, so the contracting option definitely works, and make working remotely far easier.

I did in the past.. as a tech journalist.. but these days I work in a secure, 9 to 5 job to make life a little more easy in regards to securing loans etc. So while I was younger and had little to no commitments, this style of work was fine.. but for raising a family, having a home etc.. for my peace of mind, I needed to get a full time job....

Having said that, half the issue with that contract work was chasing the publisher for my paycheck.. there was a particular company I worked for that took up to 9 months to pay me.. it's just not suitable for trying to get a regular life together.. so I opted out :)

Yes, I did. There were companies whose modus operandi I didn't sufficiently buy into, to join. I didn't like the way they went about business, didn't care for their ethics, didn't like their management team, etc. I couldn't "drink their kool aid". However, I could and did certainly take the money they were throwing around to contractors, and laugh about the fact that "Hey, I'm just here for 6 months." Really, it was a way to get paid to do a good project or two by people who had cash to burn, without feeling like I'd sold out my own professional ethics to be the equivalent of theirs.

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